Ling Ma: Severance

Embarrassingly, I stumbled on Ling Ma's "Severance" by accident. I'm sure it's a common confusion, but I bought it thinking it was related to the incredible Apple TV+ show of the same name.

While it predated the show by a few years, the confusion is understandable. They're both contemporary releases, set in dystopian near-futures, satirizing millennial burnout and work culture. So I think I can be forgiven for turning to this book while waiting for Season 2 of the show to be released.

And boy, am I glad I did! It's an incredible novel that came into my life at the right moment. Somewhat similar to "Station Eleven," you get glimpses of the protagonist's life both before and after a world-changing viral calamity. In this case, the calamity is a fungal infection that turns hosts into zombie-like creatures. Zombies can be a malleable symbol, and in this case, it's clear that the author uses them to represent humanity sleepwalking through late-stage capitalism.

In this scene, Candace stumbles upon a fevered family living out their final days in rote imitation of normalcy:

As we watched, the mother began to set the table with dishes, white with navy trim, from the matching cherry sideboard, her movements rote and systematic. First she began setting up the dinner plates, then the salad plates on top, then soup bowls on top of that. After place settings were arranged, she distributed the cutlery. She set up four place settings. When she sat down, they clasped their hands together on the table and bowed their heads. The father opened and closed his mouth. What are they doing? Ashley asked. Looks like they’re saying grace, Janelle observed. When the father spoke, he uttered sounds but no words, at least none that I could decipher from our proximity. He could have been speaking in tongues.

After a few moments, they opened their eyes and began to have dinner, as a family. They ran their tongues over the cutlery. They clinked knives and forks to the plates, dashing off chicken cutlet or veal Parmesan. They brought the plates to their lips and licked them, like child actors in Chef Boyardee commercials, as if the plates were redolent of savory spaghetti sauce. A pasta primavera with fresh garden vegetables. A Salisbury steak with canned corn. Dinner was over when Mrs. Gower stood up again. She circled around the dining room table, gathered up the dishes and cutlery, then stacked them back in the sideboard. As soon as she finished, she began again, unstacking plates and resetting the table. The Gowers were having dinner once more, the second of dozens of dinners they would have that night. They bowed their heads and said grace, although they likely did not speak words but animal mumblings following the same rhythm, the same cadence, like humming a favorite tune. Words are often the first to go when you are fevered.

The zombies in this story are mercifully non-violent, but at times no less unnerving than typical horror fare. The mindlessness that these poor creatures descend into makes one think of how we all spend our one precious life just getting to our next vacation or waiting for life to ease up a bit.

I loved, in equal parts, the tellings of the post-apocalyptic world and the scenes from the "before times" where Candace comes to terms with real life and the necessary pursuit of money and stability. The novel interrogates the workings of the global economy where there are no real winners.

I think this is one of my favorite books of 2024, and I highly recommend it for anyone approaching middle age who wants to commiserate about the dailyness of life with a talented author.